Solo wrote:Incidentally, is anyone else out there who thinks the 'ektromati' ('miscarried', or 'aborted') Paul in verse 8 is a hostile retort to Paul's boasting he was selected by God 'ek koilias mhtros mou' - 'from my mother's womb' (Gal 1:15) to be an apostle ?
But the text as transmitted to modern times does not present it as a hostile retort by Paul's enemies.
I think that it is more likely that Paul, a kind of religious purist who wanted to keep his traditions free of Hellenic taint, but facing a lot of opposition from those who wanted to "normalize" relations between Judeans and Gentiles. Then, one day, he realized that what he wanted to do was ultimately unattainable. He began to feel he was a failure, yes, even an "abortion".
This was just before his vision, of course, but in that vision, when it came, he was overwhelmed with the feeling that God, even when he was in his mother's womb, had chosen him for a special purpose, to propose a solution that everyone could assent to. Maybe he was to come to full term with his mission after all!
He realized that God had justified Abram on account of his faith that God would fulfill his promise that Abram's "seed" would one day inhabit a land of milk and honey. Until then he had assumed that God had meant physical descendants by the word "seed" (sg).
But he thought an impossible thought: "What if using the singular form of the word "seed" to mean something else than physical descendants. He had noticed that Abram had been justified before God by his faith in that promise, well before he finally had himself and his household circumcised in token of his acceptance of the covenant of the divine Promise. He saw an "out" to his problem of what to do with gentiles who wished to participate in such a promise land.
They too could participate, because they have the same faith as Abram that God would one day accomplish it. It was a technicality, sure, but if it can be acknowledged as a workable solution, then "What can stop us from bridging the chasm between our very different cultures?"
DCH
